John Loegering, Ph.D., associate professor in the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department at the University of Minnesota, Crookston, was elected to the position of president-elect of the North Central Section of The Wildlife Society (TWS). The three-year commitment includes serving as the section’s president and past-president as well.
A certified wildlife biologist, Loegering (photo at right) currently serves as advisor to the Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society, a group he helped organize when he arrived on the Crookston campus in 2000. His efforts were recognized in 2004 when he received the Student Chapter Advisor of the Year from The Wildlife Society at the 11th Annual Conference in Calgary, Alberta.
He also received the Outstanding Service Award from the Minnesota Chapter of The Wildlife Society in 2008 and served as the organization’s president in 2009. Loegering, who advises more than 35 undergraduate students, has a unique teaching appointment that includes a 50% joint appointment on the St. Paul campus that focuses primarily on outreach and research. Loegering has been a member of The Wildlife Society for more than 26 years, and over that time, has served as an officer at the student, state, and section levels. He currently serves as the treasurer for the College and University Education Working Group of TWS.
His leadership comes at an important time for the organization, “I appreciate the opportunity to serve and lead these large scale organizations at a time when interstate cooperation is critical to successful natural resource management,” Loegering says. “Challenges such as chronic wasting disease, Asian carp, climate change, or invasive species management clearly will benefit from a regional strategy. I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to the strategic conservation management of the resources in the Midwest.”
The North Central Section includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Sections are the regional networks of The Wildlife Society in North America and bring a regional perspective to wildlife conservation issues and enable members to be active in professional affairs in a regional context. They promote cooperative efforts and the exchange of information among wildlife professionals and Wildlife Society chapters in a broad geographic area. For example, they recently sponsored a symposium for Midwestern states on the impacts on wildlife of lead in the environment, principally from hunting and fishing activities. Continuing to develop these multi-state information exchanges on critical issues will be one of Loegering’s priorities as president.
The mission of The Wildlife Society is to represent and serve the professional community of scientists, managers, educators, technicians, planners, and others who work actively to study, manage, and conserve wildlife and its habitats worldwide. To learn more, visit http://joomla.wildlife.org.
